tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68795582012-01-21T05:30:46.945-07:00Personal and professional blog of Ian McAnerin.Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.comBlogger2071100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-32581902546701919192011-01-19T23:32:00.010-07:002011-01-20T10:38:26.941-07:00

This is the current organic search share for the end of 2010. You can click on the image for a larger version.Organic Search Engine Market Share - Global 2010/2011(Rounded data in brackets)Google/Ask 86.21% (87%)Bing/Yahoo 9.06% (9%)Baidu 2.97% (3%)Others 0.68% (1%)2010 was a busy year for search, due to Google pulling out of China and merging with Ask, and the Yahoo/Bing merger. In order

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-4006990898452350222010-09-28T14:55:00.003-06:002010-09-28T15:09:51.437-06:00

We've updated the SEO-Browser!You can now use it to visit sites from the US or Canada, which is very helpful for multi-country sites. More countries will be added later, as the demand grows.Canada: ca.seo-browser.comUSA: us.seo-browser.comIn order to add this functionality, we had to put in a FREE one time signup. Don't worry, we don't share emails with anyone.You can still use it in simple mode

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-13862348840602696742010-03-29T11:56:00.006-06:002010-03-29T22:24:06.732-06:00

It seems that MS Bing is either really bad at search, or is allowing it's results to be unduly influenced by either money or corporate policy. I'm leaning towards the censorship version of the story, myself.Do a search for open office in Google. Now do the same one in Bing. You'll notice the complete absence of openoffice.org in Bing. They send you almost everywhere but to the right site.Think

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-13177138432088246272009-12-14T11:04:00.003-07:002009-12-14T11:19:44.675-07:00

I'm not sure if this is just an IIS 6.0 issue, but that's where I just ran into it.A user of the SEO Browser contacted us today because the browser couldn't load his site. That wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for Google ALSO not apparently being able to load his site (it was unindexed). However, browsers loaded it just fine.It took some investigating, but I finally found the issue. The

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-29597191883853912552009-09-06T17:29:00.004-06:002009-09-06T17:50:50.528-06:00

M$ (automatically) killed my Outlook 2007 last night on my Windows Vista 64 system. It was one of those "Windows Update is finished so we restarted your computer for you even though you didn't say we could" issues, followed by the usual Microsoft screw-up of hosing the system they were supposed to be fixing and protecting.I'd be a little more patient with them if this wasn't caused directly by

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-10164842017087875462009-09-02T12:33:00.007-06:002009-09-02T14:47:09.826-06:00

Most SEO's are taught the simple mantra that a 302 (temporary redirect) is bad, and a 301 (permanent redirect) is good.This is wrong. Or at least, part of it is.An SEO quoting the above to someone who is really knowledgeable in web servers will have just shot themselves in the virtual foot, and probably made their job harder, since now the server expert is more likely to dismiss other things they

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-16835698845344226152009-07-21T12:23:00.005-06:002009-07-21T12:42:54.514-06:00

After some testing and a confirmation from Google, I've discovered a new (to me, anyway) twist to Google's PPC Ad targeting for international sites.In SEO, Googe decides on the country your site is relevant for first by ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain - like .ca, .uk, .mx, and so on) and then by IP and other methods.Turns out this thinking also applies to PPC.If you target a specific country

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-85649589496356574342009-06-08T20:19:00.004-06:002009-06-08T20:29:20.901-06:00

It's not uncommon for people to "google"you before hiring you, renting to you or even dating you. So you might want to do some damage control regarding that crazy weekend in Vegas you were hoping no one ever posted pictures of online...Social Media Reputation Management is a whole art and science by itself, but you can start today by filling out a Google Profile.Then you can at least try to tell

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-23391640531736774242009-05-28T10:55:00.005-06:002009-05-28T11:06:13.231-06:00

Microsoft has just announced that the new name for it's "Live" search engine (which everyone disliked) is called "Bing" which everyone will also probably dislike, but at least isn't as confusing.The other candidate was "Kumo", which I admit I would have disliked more. Poor Microsoft, I'm pretty sure no matter what they chose it would have been wrong.You can give it a test drive and find out more

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-28297900797641571922009-04-28T15:34:00.005-06:002009-04-29T01:42:50.142-06:00

UPDATE:By complete coincidence, MS announced SP2 for Office 2007 *today*. Which I found about 10 minutes after complaining in this post. I'm installing it and I'll let you know how things go.-------------------------If you have an embedded Excel 2007 file in a Word 2007 document, and happen to have Excel open as well, Office, (in it's brilliance) informs you that Excel is not installed and tries

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-3627811824596248202009-04-02T00:17:00.002-06:002009-04-02T00:22:23.170-06:00

If your keyboard starts spitting out strange characters, it's because you've probably switched keyboard language layouts by accident.It's easy to do: Press / and then Ctrl ShiftI do this sometimes if I'm just trying to type a "?", which has me pressing the / and shift already. If my finger slips a bit and I hit the ctrl under the shift at the same time, suddenly my typing is all nonsense.Fix:

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-85299241550015769772009-03-26T14:11:00.003-06:002009-03-26T14:16:18.198-06:00

I was checking the robots.txt file of a client today, and it was far more complicated than normal, so I went looking for an automated syntax checker.I found this one from Motoricerca, (an Italian SEO company) and can recommend it: Robots.txt Syntax Checker (it's in English).I like it so much I'm adding a link to it from my robots.txt generator.Ian

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-28552388002728692462009-03-08T11:20:00.004-06:002009-03-08T11:54:29.734-06:00

My son Tas plays an online game called Mabinogi and today mentioned to me a new feature in the game, which had been overrun by something called bots.Bots are basically programs that control player characters within the games, taking over for the person who is supposed to be doing it. There are many types of bots, including ones that do repetitive tasks so they player doesn't have to, and the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-5511692336500770242009-03-01T21:54:00.003-07:002009-03-01T22:00:35.781-07:00

I've been messing around with it, and I believe that I've found a new use for the Canonical tag - geolocation of gTLD's.Simply park (not redirect) a ccTLD on your site, upload an HTML sitemap that points to all your pages with the ccTLD, then place the canonical tag with the gTLD on your pages.Viola - the search engine "tags" your pages as geolocated via the ccTLD, but only displays the gTLD.You

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-74194228199553476262009-02-28T07:36:00.008-07:002009-02-28T09:18:37.798-07:00

This is the second and final part of a 2 part series on the relationship between search behavior and SERP landscape. Part 1 is here.PART 2: THE EFFECT OF SERP LANDSCAPE ON SEARCHER BEHAVIORThe seeds of this article arose when I was studying differences in searcher behavior between countries.I noticed that in many countries, especially those who are relatively new to the internet being widely

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-6718956894256037432009-02-27T18:42:00.021-07:002009-02-28T09:19:56.672-07:00

PART 1: STAGES OF SEARCHER BEHAVIORThe following is original research developed from several hundred interviews across 9 countries (Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, China, Japan, Korea, England and France), combined with insights gleaned from both formal training in cultural anthropology and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction - aka usability). That said, I could be totally wrong. But I don't think so.I

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-45879386342874601782009-02-09T08:38:00.008-07:002009-02-09T09:12:03.563-07:00

I was doing some keyword research this morning and was reminded of a very important issue that I'd like to share.It's February, and I just did some KW research related to Calgary (my home town,and a place I'm very familiar with, as far as KW research goes).Services like KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker typically default to showing what's in their database for the last few months (usually around 3

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-87326266516631364952009-02-06T10:04:00.008-07:002009-02-06T11:50:46.491-07:00

The new thing all the "cool" social media spammers are doing now is impersonating famous people on twitter. They sign up for a name that is very similar to a well known person (ie "mattcutts" becomes "mattcutts_" and then sets their screen name to the exact name of the person they are impersonating: "Matt Cutts". I use Matt as an example here because it happened to him recently by a particularly

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-40918885560039704942009-01-26T13:45:00.006-07:002009-01-26T14:41:00.549-07:00

It's the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) again. Many people call it Chinese New Year but of course the Chinese are not the only ones who celebrate it, so Lunar New Year is more correct. This year (2009) is the Year of the Ox. Specifically, the Earth Ox. If you were born in 1961, 1973 or 1985, you are an Ox, as well.The expected characteristics for this year are that success will come only

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-47410828921696766232009-01-12T18:13:00.017-07:002009-05-28T11:05:20.035-06:00

I'm currently working on a very, very cool tool that I can't tell you about (yet). However, part of it (an extremely minor part) allows the creation and export of PPC text ads for all major search engines.Although I can't share the full tool yet, it took me some work to collect this information in one spot, so I figured I'd share it with you.Where bulk upload is allowed, the listings use the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-42967144341005196312009-01-07T08:06:00.010-07:002009-01-07T10:08:45.246-07:00

I give a lot of presentations, and I optimize things for a living, so it was just a matter of time for nature to take it's course and for me to start wondering what the hell I was doing.See, there are a lot of different types of presentations (I'm talking about ones that use slides or PowerPoint here). There are presentations intended to inspire, presentations intended to sell, presentations

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-44229462406748413172009-01-06T11:00:00.005-07:002009-01-06T11:07:06.280-07:00

I'll be visiting Mexico from Feb 16-24 and Brazil from Feb 24-Mar 3 for the purposes of meeting other SEO's, learning about the local search marketing environment and culture, and generally beginning to learn more about and promote those two countries as excellent SEO targets for international businesses.If you live in either place (specifically Mexico City, Acapulco, Cancun, Sao Paulo and Rio de

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-45608777322039369652008-10-07T09:55:00.005-06:002008-10-09T22:33:11.498-06:00

As you may know, my company offers the most popular robots.txt generator in the world free to visitors, and we are continually adding functionality.In response to a recent request, we've added Naver to the robots.txt tool. Naver is the most popular search engine/portal in Korea. I've been to Korea several times, and (because it's my job) I always ask everyone I meet what search engine they use.

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-21862864978296419572008-10-07T09:12:00.002-06:002008-10-07T09:16:36.716-06:00

I came across this sign during a recent trip to Banff, and thought I would share. Google is everywhere...

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-50496864770755612712008-10-01T14:37:00.003-06:002008-10-01T14:41:12.087-06:00

This is a followup on a previous post complaining about my beloved Google Toolbar being lost during the upgrade to IE7 and Googles own Chrome not even allowing me the option.I guess Google gave up on getting their toolbar to install on IE7, so they appear to have used the Admin Kit provided by MS to create a version of IE7 that has the toolbar included.http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/Works for

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-38911896753117896852008-09-30T09:35:00.008-06:002008-10-01T12:31:22.741-06:00

International SEO is just like regular SEO, but with a type of personalization.Arguably, the first step towards true search personalization by the search engines was international search. This was followed by local search and universal search, with even more coming ideas coming along, including logins, "answers" and so on.But it started with international search, because that was the big issue -

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-53300255332685412832008-09-09T01:45:00.003-06:002009-05-28T11:05:20.036-06:00

I just made these for a presentation, based on the latest information I have for this year. Enjoy.Organic Search Engine Share 2008 for North AmericaPPC (Pay Per Click) Search Engine Share 2008 for North America

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-1464015933694423612008-09-02T21:58:00.009-06:002008-09-02T22:42:02.600-06:00

I like the Google toolbar. There, I said it.Today, I decided to take a chance and upgrade my IE 7 to IE 8 Beta. I use Firefox for SEO purposes and IE for normal browsing, so this was a big deal for me, since I use IE a lot.Upon installation, IE 8 promptly informed me that the Google Toolbar isn't compatible with it. A quick check on the web showed that it can cause all sorts of freezing and

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-20633573584360764512008-08-12T16:33:00.010-06:002008-08-13T11:39:19.283-06:00

You know you are getting old when you have an uncontrollable urge to start a post starting with words like "in my day.." , "I remember when.." or "I've seen this before..."But it's true - that's the problem. People who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, or to even live through something worse. I was reminded of this while reading a recent forum thread about ranking reports.Someone

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-77086960245301855372008-07-29T00:21:00.004-06:002008-07-29T00:43:03.329-06:00

As many of you know, I run one of the most popular robots.txt generators on the web. Some time ago, I sent an email to up and coming search engine "Cuil" for information so I could add their crawler to the tool.Once they came out of stealth mode, I was sent an email with the information (which I've been procrastinating on) and just today discovered that Victor mentioned my tool in his blog.Well,

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-31589403778537742262008-07-25T14:16:00.006-06:002008-07-25T14:56:30.238-06:00

--Begin Rant--Eddie Davidson, the so-called "Spam King", just murdered most of his family after escaping from jail. I have not the words to adequately describe my feelings towards this scumbag, but I assure you none of them are nice or polite. My feelings of sympathy are only with his family, not him.I realize that not all spammers are child killing cowards, but they do tend to share his "looking

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-41255923429132084882008-07-24T14:16:00.009-06:002008-07-25T11:59:49.183-06:00

AS mny of you know, I kan't spel good sumtimes.However, I've learned to use the Google Toolbar spellchecker (and the Word spellchecker, when I'm in there) and now most of the time my misspellings are more of the "properly spelled wrong word" variety. You know, typing "it it" instead of "it is" or my most infamous mistake, which, no matter how hard I try, I seem to consistently use wrongly: "its"

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-36789520866089335222008-06-27T17:57:00.003-06:002008-06-28T00:33:59.282-06:00

Hi all,I'm going on a family vacation to see relatives in the Toronto and Ottawa area for the next little while, so unlike my normal travel ties I won't be as accessible as normal. As a matter of fact, unless you are currently on my "To Do" list, I probably won't respond unless it's clearly an emergency or I said I would.The good news is that I *will* be working on my "To Do" list (which

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-36375213508812877962008-06-04T00:06:00.002-06:002008-06-04T00:55:58.168-06:00

One of the problems with having been doing this (SEO and SEM) for a while and with having a head for search trivia like me is that I have found myself increasingly disinterested in most search conference sessions.If I have to sit through one more "Links are important" session I'll scream. At this point, my interest in the conferences is meeting up with old and new friends, networking, and

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-58108274984424494962008-05-27T13:53:00.003-06:002008-05-27T14:20:10.992-06:00

So, I have a client, all nice and tidy in my AdWords Pro Account. This client has a very large spend (500K+) and frankly, my credit cards simply don't have the space on them. So I set up invoicing with Google.Google, to their credit, work quickly and are very helpful. Even so, there are delays involved simply due to processing times, etc. During this period, which is rather nerve-racking, I

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-15031454885206999882008-05-26T18:09:00.005-06:002008-05-26T19:01:41.687-06:00

I just received an email today from Yahoo informing me that Mexico is now on the new Panama PPC system.This is good news for international SEM's like myself, since the old Yahoo kinda sucked. Worse, it was really, really hard to integrate into PPC software like Omniture Search Center.I haven't played with it yet, but I'll keep you updated.Ian-------------------------------------------------------

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-14638162511392082362008-05-22T23:18:00.013-06:002008-05-23T03:24:44.765-06:00

Here is a mostly unsorted list of what I learned in China last week - the lessons will also tell the story...FYI: what was supposed to happen was that I leave Canada on May 12, stay 3 days in Shanghai (and see the famous water town - China's Venice), then take a train to Nanjing to speak at a conference, then fly to Xi'an to see the terracotta warriors, then fly home.Lessons Learned:1. Even if

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-67556532476770785622008-04-09T10:56:00.008-06:002008-04-09T11:12:24.818-06:00

There is no way that one person could hope to write an entire Standards document for an entire industry, so I'm breaking this down into smaller parts that I feel would be the most helpful to others.In this case, the following is a proposed set of Standards for creating Standards. Yes, you need rules for making the rules. In the full Standards, this would be the first section.Naturally, comments

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-57009914530936786422008-04-09T10:08:00.004-06:002008-04-09T10:18:39.302-06:00

For more information about how a Code of Ethics fits in with Standards and Guidelines, see the previous post.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Search Marketing Code of EthicsWe, the search marketing professionals who are voluntarily adhering to the statements of principles set out below, do hereby believe in and commit to the following:

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-47638968576360374362008-04-09T09:17:00.007-06:002008-04-09T11:11:40.440-06:00

UPDATES:Draft Code of Ethics posted Proposed SEM Standards (Part 1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As promised, I offer the following several posts to the SEM community as proposed draft Code of Ethics, Standards, and Guidelines.First, a primer on how these 3 things fit together:Code Of EthicsA Code of Ethics is a general statement of common

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-85916194093529817422008-04-01T16:50:00.006-06:002008-04-01T17:32:35.410-06:00

One of the nice things about being the co-creator of an SEO tool like the SEO Browser is that when I have an idea for something I'd like fixed or added, it's a lot easier to make sure it happens ;)Of course, I have to pay for it, but at least it happens...For those of you who don't know what the SEO browser is, it's an online SEO tool that lets you see your site the way a search engine sees it.

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-54318155706711995142008-03-28T01:03:00.003-06:002008-03-28T01:20:07.203-06:00

...Continued from Part 13. There are already laws to protect people from SEO scams. Sure, you could argue that the law covers all that. Heck, you could (and some people do) argue that we could get rid of all laws but the 10 Commandments. Just interpret everything, and let all your customer relations and the organization of your profession be interpreted by courts and bureaucrats every single time

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-83874333617164297362008-03-27T23:55:00.008-06:002008-03-28T01:42:00.550-06:00

I was interested to read Jills recent article on search standards, and I had to respond, even though I adore her and (literally) owe the start of my career to her. I started responding on her forum, but since it got too long and the article wasn't actually posted in her forum, I decided to respond here, instead.I disagree. Although it's all well and good to approach things with a completely

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-25872059742487076812008-03-26T10:49:00.004-06:002008-03-26T13:02:26.414-06:00

A thread in a forum came up recently from someone wanting advice on whether they should use SearchCenter, or some other Bid Management tool like IndexTools or Atlas. Most of the responses were that you should be very careful about using any PPC bid management tool at all. Naturally, I have an opinion ;)Omniture SearchCenter ReviewI'm currently using Omniture SearchCenter for one of my clients. I

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-31790017036685145052008-03-25T13:52:00.004-06:002008-03-25T13:58:42.411-06:00

Almost all sites benefit from a combination of both PPC and SEO. There are only two exceptions:1. Pure "hobby" sites where the goal isn't to make money or impress anyone but you and your friends. Most people's blogs and MySpace pages fall into this type of category. Although there are some highly profitable blogs, most are not, and not intended to be. Using PPC in this case is akin to publishing

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-55331416527107007992008-03-10T08:56:00.009-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.299-06:00

This has been a very, very bad month.Most depressing, my 19 year old niece Samantha was killed in a car accident. RIP Sam. :(That would have been bad enough, but of course, that's not all.The timeline:1. My largest client had cash flow issues stemming from a contract problem we had both missed. The net result was that I had to take out a second mortgage on my own home and max out every credit

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-72250485365056058122008-03-06T11:45:00.003-07:002008-03-06T12:15:46.190-07:00

Has this ever happened to you?You phone the customer service line of a large company (bank, telephone, Google AdWords, etc) and get an automated voicemail system.This voicemail system then asks you for information "to help you get to the right party". You then dutifully punch in your telephone number, bank account number, or client number, whereupon you are transferred to "the appropriate party".

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-55906942805813423902008-03-02T16:43:00.002-07:002008-03-02T16:47:26.603-07:00

When you are engaging in social media, are your tactics "social" or "anti-social"?If self-interest and self-promotion is your only goal, then you are in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. It's OK to have your own interests, but to ignore the interests of others is by definition anti-social and doesn't belong in "social media".In short, are you joining a conversation, or trying to control it?

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-73561998587555722982008-02-03T21:15:00.000-07:002009-05-28T11:05:20.037-06:00

I note with some vindication that Google apparently agrees with my assessment that Microsoft's bid for Yahoo is hostile.Admittedly, Google has a vested interest in promoting the idea that a combination between MS and Y! would be unfair, but, honestly, tough noogies. Competition is good, and I can't see Googles viewpoint as anything other than a cynical attempt to keep and increase their market

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-21590095124683056672008-02-01T15:05:00.000-07:002009-05-28T11:05:20.037-06:00

Upon reading the letter sent by Microsoft to Yahoo! more carefully, I think I'm seeing a completely different subtext than I originally thought, which was an offer to purchase.I could be over-analyzing, but I've been working in and around public companies for many years now and I smell a hostile takeover bid, or at least the threat of one.Read below and tell me what you think: Microsoft says that

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-49925237773644816152008-02-01T10:34:00.000-07:002009-05-28T11:05:20.038-06:00

If you haven't heard yet, Microsoft has made a bid to buy Yahoo for about 44 Billion, after attempts to create a partnership or other options last year were rejected. If you can't join 'em or beat 'em... buy 'em.I'd go into an analysis, but honestly Microsoft has done a pretty good job of it already (below). With Yahoo laying people off and Google's stock losing value, this may be very good

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-1312466468528611322008-01-22T00:58:00.000-07:002008-01-22T02:33:56.769-07:00

Every year, I go visit at least one of the major international search markets. Since my specialty is in global SEO/SEM it would not be very credible for me to claim to be an expert on marketing to a country I've never even been to, would it?Actually, there are a depressing number of companies that do exactly this - sell one-page "international" pages for sites, typically poorly translated, and

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-40406624170907567742008-01-17T15:44:00.000-07:002008-01-17T17:57:09.985-07:00

Although not political in nature, this post is being made in response to a current political issue in Canada. I don't want to get into politics in this blog, but sometimes politicians and government give us very good fodder for thoughts on decision making and leadership, which is the real reason for this post.The upshot of the issue in question was that a quasi-independent commission designed to

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-831494864887960562007-12-23T13:30:00.000-07:002007-12-23T16:32:22.717-07:00

I'm not much of a cook. I can't make waffles without using every single utensil and pot in the house, and I occasionally go check my email in the middle of making something, only to lose track of time until the fire alarm goes off....But every year I make chocolate truffles with the kids. Now, normally making proper chocolates requires special copper pans and candy thermometers and all sorts of

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-35025609286498364352007-12-14T12:26:00.001-07:002007-12-14T12:41:34.405-07:00

I like Linked In. It's a very handy little tool I recommend for almost everyone. This is actually saying something because normally I avoid social media like the plague.Why would a search marketer avoid social media? Because sometimes I find that you can be too social. I'm finding this with Facebook - it's lot's of fun at first, but there are some people who simply never leave you alone to get

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-36426189345955925742007-11-23T01:27:00.000-07:002008-06-28T00:32:49.300-06:00

I've tried 3 types of comment moderation so far:No Comments Allowed. But that's no fun - hard to build a community or get feedback.All Comments Allowed. You guessed it - I got spammed. I hate so-called SEO's who spam.Only People with Blogger Accounts Can Post. Well, this was OK for a while, but it limits the people who will post. And for the last couple of days some spammer has been posting...get

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-79987850026901511602007-11-21T21:11:00.000-07:002007-11-21T21:35:37.955-07:00

I've been having problems with the installation of Google Adwords on my Vista machine for a while now. I've been putting off fixing it because I hire people to do PPC for me on a day to day basis, so it's not a huge issue. But today I needed to fix something for a client ASAP, and it was enough of a job that I needed to do it personally, and I needed to use the Editor.Well, it turns out that

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-50449677982172761542007-11-20T11:42:00.000-07:002007-11-20T11:54:10.863-07:00

I've already mentioned that I've applied for a search related patent recently.Well, I finally got offical confirmation of the "Patent Pending" status and my very own USPTO Patent Application Number - 60/999,180. "System and Method for Website IP Address Based Geolocation"Cool. Now I just have to finish up the control panel and it will be ready for public use.Ian

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-67521839396356940752007-11-20T11:15:00.000-07:002007-11-20T11:42:16.233-07:00

Once I joined SEMPO, I also joined a couple of committees/working groups/SIGS that struck my fancy at the time.Since I'm the "International SEO Guy", I joined SEMPO Canada, SEMPO Latin America, and SEMPO Asia. We've already begun having meetings, and although these local SEMPO focus areas are new, there is some nice momentum going.It's nice to see some localization happening - running things in a

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-82945653850958153642007-11-19T09:57:00.000-07:002007-11-19T10:10:33.276-07:00

I made these charts for a presentation recently. I hope you like them.IanThe 3 Pillars of SEOThe 3 Pillars of SEMThe Relationship Between SEO and SEM

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-72532451583056495892007-11-11T12:07:00.000-07:002007-11-11T12:55:52.540-07:00

My father drove a tank in Germany for NATO, my Great Uncle was Norman Bethune, who fought fascism as a doctor in China, and my many greats grandfather was General Sir Isaac Brock, who defended Canada during the war of 1812. There were many more, of lessor fame but not lessor valor.My own military experience is far more limited - Air Cadets, militia and a civilian instructor for wilderness

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-45361537230513647592007-11-09T18:25:00.000-07:002007-11-09T19:33:29.058-07:00

I just got back from speaking at the Canada e-Connect show, which was actually several events (and several firsts) all rolled into one. First, there was the inauguaral meeting of the Canada e-Tourism Council. Then there was the show itself, and then there was the Canadian e-Tourism Awards.I'm not a member of the e-Tourism Council, and it was a closed session, so I can't report much on what

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-16265800884979883772007-11-07T20:06:00.000-07:002007-11-07T20:26:37.188-07:00

I somehow found myself on the Toronto Stars' "Acts of Kindness" page tonight, probably by surfing following some news story about something terrible happening to someone, though I don't remember exactly what.As I read the page, I felt my chest tighten and eyes water a bit, as I'm kind of sentimental that way. The section of the site is little stories about acts of kindness from strangers that

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-6049252641829389532007-10-31T10:49:00.000-06:002007-10-31T11:21:03.181-06:00

Google just unveiled a new tool in their Webmaster Tools - the ability to set geotargeting for sites, even down to the street level if necessary. Naturally this is very cool, and interesting to those of us that deal with geolocation issues all the time.The tool will not allow you to override the ccTLD, so you can't declare your .ca site to be from the US, for example, but if you have a gTLD like

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-70869942823198984292007-10-28T15:50:00.000-06:002007-10-31T11:15:51.971-06:00

Andrew R H Girdwood is a very smart fellow. He's already posited that my new IPGeoTarget system is likely based on proxying, and of course he's correct - it really can't be done any other way.Well, there is one other way - one could alter the geographic tag for an IP, either directly at the IP Mapping provider or after the fact, like a private database. Both of these have issues - mainly the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-74408718352689167402007-10-27T17:50:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.300-06:00

That was fast - I already have a winner for the Name My Geo IP Service contest I just announced.A big congratulations to Jill Whalen of HighRankings.com for the winning entry of IPGeoTarget™.A special thanks also to Barry Welford of Strategic Marketing Montreal for his close runner-up suggestion - much appreciated!I guess now I'm gonna have to get the trademark registered and start making the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-91207481218151609722007-10-25T22:31:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.301-06:00

OK, I'm having a problem here. I'm trying to figure out a trade name for my new patent pending service. I actually thought this would be the easy part, but it turns out it's harder than coming up with the darn patent in the first place!It doesn't help that I'm mostly blind and can't look at a computer screen for more than a few minutes at a time.The service basically allows you to "set" the IP of

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-74824214193556200892007-10-21T20:56:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.301-06:00

Tomorrow (Monday Oct 22) I'm going in for eye surgery that should (hopefully) fix all my recent issues with my right eye. Since I'm in there anyway, I'm also going to get lasik correction on my left ('cause I'm a sucker for punishment).So I'll be effectively blind (again) for at least a week or so. The left eye should be back to normal fairly quickly, but they have to completely remove the cornea

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-85735223384199615872007-10-13T19:49:00.000-06:002007-10-14T23:54:26.531-06:00

ADDED NOTE:I mistakenly assumed that the Xiamen Conference was the same as last years without checking further, so I have a correction to make. The SES China conference (run as a partnership between TimeV and Incisive) is different from the China Search Engine Marketing Conference & Expo, Xiamen 2008, and has not been announced this year yet, and may not be. I'll find out and get back to you.The

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-71952273306027498932007-10-08T10:34:00.000-06:002007-10-08T23:27:51.460-06:00

So, I'm logging into SEMPO today to finally join (I was a member years ago, but allowed the membership to lapse during my SMA-NA days) and noticed this clause as part of the signup process:Business Conduct. In addition, the applicant agrees to engagein Search Marketing practices which are not in direction violation of published guidelines from Google, Yahoo!, and other search engine

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-70807374744129404732007-10-07T23:13:00.000-06:002007-10-08T00:01:33.719-06:00

I was reading Seth's Blog tonight and he had an old post about yak shaving in it that really hit home to me."Yak shaving" is a term that was apparently invented in 2000 by Carlin Vieri, a student at MIT, referring to a "Ren and Stimpy" episode (Watch the Yak Shaving Episode). Yes, the show is very silly. It's Canadian humor, what can I say?It refers to a seemingly pointless, unrelated activity

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-48618970921260220652007-10-05T13:12:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.302-06:00

Cool - I made the "BigList" for the TopRank Blog with the following description:Long time search marketer and ex-attorney Ian McAnerin writes a mix of posts onSEO, China, search marketing conferences, search engines and a bit ofphilosophy.I also get a badge :) Lee says the link back is totally optional, which is a good way to get me to give him one ;)I usually don't pay much attention to blog

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-49255462038457360082007-10-03T12:12:00.000-06:002007-10-03T13:58:06.707-06:00

The question of how many keywords you should optimize for on a page is nearly as old as the idea of keywords being on a page in the first place, and there still really isn't a perfect answer.However, hopefully I can give you some guidance. First, I need to explain some concepts.First, a keyword (or key phrase) is just that - a word or group of words that you type into a search engine with the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-27216988389870164192007-10-02T20:16:00.000-06:002007-10-02T23:33:13.235-06:00

I've been asked several times about PDF files (like those made with Adobe Acrobat) and SEO.My advice? Use MS Word (or Wordperfect) not Acrobat. For reasons that I can only describe as being stupid to the extreme, only the latest (and really expensive) versions of Acrobat save links within the PDF document. And not if you use the printer driver function (aka PDFMaker), which is what most people

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-77580879658533100202007-09-22T22:15:00.000-06:002007-10-31T11:15:51.988-06:00

As you can tell from my most recent posts on IP Addresses and Geotargetting Adwords, I've been thinking a lot about geolocation recently. Up until recently, I've been suggesting that people use the tool IP2Location for checking geolocation, since there is free demo online and they have free/cheap API tools.The problem is that I've been recently testing IP2Location, and it's database is not very

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-87024801060015580712007-09-22T12:35:00.000-06:002007-10-31T11:15:51.989-06:00

I haven't talked about IP addresses for a while (and never in this blog). Since I've been asked several times recently about them, I think it's a good time to talk about them.What is an IP Address?Computers "think" in numbers, not words and letters. Humans tend to be the opposite. In order to deal with this, programmers and technicians have been creating technologies that translate between the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-30961908744174778212007-09-20T01:36:00.000-06:002009-05-28T11:05:20.038-06:00

"When geo-targeting ads by a client's country, what is the best practice for language targeting?"As a general rule of thumb, your ad should be in the same language as the SERP the searcher is looking at.Let's say you target Korea, to use an example. If you are just beginning, then it would be best to geotarget Korea and also target the Korean language. Although many Koreans read/speak English, it

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-5894379676387645072007-09-19T20:36:00.000-06:002007-09-19T22:27:42.623-06:00

I admit it. I've been using MS FrontPage since before it could even be called a proper website editor - a copy came free with Windows NT 4. Yes, it was crap. But up until then I'd been using a text editor (vi) and actually having a semi-WYSIWYG was a big improvement at the time.Since then, I've used Dreamweaver, CoffeeCup, HTML Kit, Amaya, Homesite, and even Notepad. Of them I was most drawn to

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-86594332836076510112007-09-15T14:42:00.000-06:002007-09-15T17:59:35.871-06:00

It's with a very heavy heart that I was forced to dissolve the Search Marketing Association of North America (SMA-NA) today.I'm the last man standing from the Board, and the only communications I've received from members recently have been requests to cancel their subscriptions. So that's it. I really wish it were different.The HistoryThe SMA-UK was started back in late 2004 as a response to

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-46527831021742630852007-09-15T14:39:00.000-06:002007-09-15T14:42:38.141-06:00

Well, my client is now ranking again for negotiation training and the proxy has disappeared. The funny thing is that it was fixed before we were even able to start blocking IP's.If you are from Google and brought this to the attention of those who fixed it - thanks :) Hopefully this is the start of this entire issue being fixed for everyone.Ian

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-41495786398126562332007-09-11T16:35:00.000-06:002007-09-11T23:54:16.582-06:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, Google is susceptible to a proxy hack that can wipe sites off the SERPs, and do all sorts of other nasty things, as well.Naturally, my client is not the only one with this problem - it's a well known issue with Google and has been for almost a year. Based on how long it took them to address the 302 Hijack, I'm not holding my breath for a quick fix on Proxy

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-24765051386413832542007-09-10T11:54:00.000-06:002007-09-10T12:35:37.458-06:00

I have a client. He does negotiation training and has clients like IBM. His website is http://www.negotiationdynamics.com/. He does the actual SEO on his site and phones me for help when needed, which is a business model I rather like.Today, I got a phone call from him, and he told me he'd disappeared off of Google. Worse, his site seemed to have been hijacked. When you type in the search

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-741709210727124042007-09-06T13:14:00.000-06:002007-09-06T14:28:57.988-06:00

I was thinking today about what makes a specific SEO tactic effective or not, and had an epiphany. I've discussed my opinions on marketing VS content before, but this time I came up with a very different angle.You see, what really drives traffic to sites is not any one tactic, but rather a combination of factors that work together as an attractant. What are the combination of factors? Well, if

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-996751639068650342007-08-30T21:37:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.302-06:00

Well, I just got back from the optometrist and she informs me my eye is getting worse, not better. What happened is the same thing that happened in Miami this year, but a lot worse. On Monday morning during Miami SES, I woke up blind - I could see light, but it was basically a bright white sheet of pain, rather than images.The hotel doctor had me rushed by ambulance to the Bascom Palmer Eye

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-70857258056379056252007-08-27T10:38:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.303-06:00

Please forgive any spelling errors - I'm typing with one very blurry eye.About 2 months ago, when I was in Miami, I hurt my eye and went temporarily blind. Well, it just happend again, and I can't see a thing.I'll be AFK for about a week while it heals.Ian

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-1853879852650266332007-08-20T11:38:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.303-06:00

It's been quite a dry spell, blogging-wise here. Sorry about that. I'm going to try to post a lot more from now on. The reason has just been life in general:I went to China for a family vacationThen I went to China again (this time with the CSMT and SES Xiamen China). I also hit Japan, Korea, Macao and Hong Kong while I was at it. This took a while to recover from, but before I did...I went to

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-38336113884071495032007-04-20T20:55:00.000-06:002007-04-20T21:55:44.283-06:00

I just came across an interesting site today, a kind of an anti-search engine, the LibraryThing Unsuggester.If you have been to Amazon.com (and who hasn't?) you will see that they have a suggestion system that basically tells you that other people who bought this book, also bought these other ones - helping you find other books that you might be interested in.Well, the Unsuggestor reverses this

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-72106556514596404422007-04-19T02:01:00.000-06:002007-04-19T02:02:51.229-06:00

I'll be in Japan from May 5-11 then in Korea from May 11-17, then in China for the China Search Marketing Tour from May 17-29. The purpose of the trip is to do some networking, and learn first hand about e-marketing in each of these countries.If you are in any of these places when I'm there, I'd love to buy you some of your favorite beverage and chat for a bit. I've got a couple of meetings with

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-1397937309502081242007-04-19T01:19:00.000-06:002009-05-28T11:05:20.039-06:00

Last week at the NYC SES Conference it was announced that all 4 major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask) now not only support the sitemaps.org sitemap protocol, but also support the new auto-discovery feature for the robots.txt file!In order to use the auto-discovery feature, you simply add the following line to your robots.txt file:Sitemap: http://sitemap_locationExample Robots.txt file

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-44423873684487171682007-04-11T00:15:00.000-06:002007-04-12T08:26:29.364-06:00

I'm back from China. No, I didn't go on the China Search Marketing Tour without you, and you didn't miss it yet (though if you don't sign up ASAP, you will!). I went on a family vacation. I took my kids, wife, inlaws and an "uncle" I've never met to Beijing, Shanghai, and finally to a small village near Kai-Ping where my wifes family comes from.Even though they are Chinese, it was the first time

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-79596389574287975492007-04-11T00:01:00.000-06:002008-06-28T00:32:49.304-06:00

Hi all,Sorry I haven't updated this blog for a while, but I went to China for 3 weeks, then had to speak at a conference in Vancouver, then came home to several virtual fires that needed to be put out, not to mention almost 3000 emails in my inbox!Admittedly, some of those have been there for a long time - I found one I red-flagged (I use Outlook) as critical in oh...2005. Ouch.I'm very proud of

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-44318292986588485522007-02-18T11:21:00.000-07:002007-02-18T13:45:23.399-07:00

Today (Feb 18, 2007) is The Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year, Spring Festival, etc)). The Chinese "zodiac", like the western one, has 12 aspects to it, but rather than being monthly, they are associated with years. This year is the Year of the Pig or Boar. More specifically, this year is also associated with Fire, so it's the Year of the Fire Pig.This is a HUGE deal in China because it's the

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-67658072541355317902007-02-07T09:32:00.000-07:002007-02-07T09:55:12.092-07:00

Rand Fishkin, of SEOmoz, proposed to his girlfriend Geraldine (aka Mysteryguest, now fiance) yesterday in a rather unique and spectactular way.He created a website called MySuperProposal.com and then made a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and her favorite show, "Veronica Mars", that contained the proposal. Her response was mostly confined to shock, hugs and, eventually, "Yes!" My

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-11439385460169980682007-02-02T14:32:00.000-07:002007-02-02T16:52:37.943-07:00

Reading the comments in Jennifers Lactivist blog about her pork problems is almost painful. Actually, it is painful.In the old days, no one knew what the law was (so the government actually had to pass a law saying that they were deemed to know). Today, probably due to too much television, it seems that they now think they do, but don't.Having a legal background, it's a pet peeve of mine to see

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-60827799681643817832007-02-01T17:53:00.000-07:002007-02-02T16:53:24.706-07:00

How on earth does an organization promoting something as lascivious-sounding as "pork" (as in porking, getting porked, etc) decide that it would be a good idea to tell a woman to remove her shirt immediately because the promotion of breastfeeding using "the other white milk" was so naughty sounding it might make them look bad?See, a colleague of mine, Jennifer Laycock, started a website (The

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-82168667501693130922007-01-30T21:47:00.000-07:002009-05-28T11:05:20.040-06:00

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, Googles President of Greater China, visited Seattle last week and gave a presentation to Googlers and other guests. Since it was recorded as a Tech Talk, I was able to listen in, as it were.Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is one of the most respected people in the Chinese IT community. He was a founder of Microsoft Research Asia (and a former VP) and is an expert in text to speech, speech

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-68927932642059334542007-01-30T18:32:00.000-07:002007-01-30T18:42:40.401-07:00

Yahoo has upgraded Site Explorer with some much desired features.My favorite is the ability to authenticate a site using a metatag, rather than requiring the upload of a text file. This was an issue for me because a client has an e-commerce platform that is totally database driven and really doesn't have a root directory to speak of. Worse, although it allows file uploads, for security reasons it

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-78472581584941203742007-01-30T08:57:00.000-07:002007-01-30T10:02:48.759-07:00

Over the years, I've talked to (or wrote to) many people who said this-or-that was "easy". Generally, these people fall into 2 groups:People talking about something that is they feel is easy, but looks hard. (experts)People talking about something they know very little about, or haven't actually done. (novices)Although these people are saying the same thing, it's often for very different

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-20530829317909003342007-01-28T15:44:00.001-07:002007-01-28T17:29:10.686-07:00

I was just catching up on some reading over at the Creating Passionate Users blog and came across a post on the iPhone.Specifically, one of the little details about the iPhone UI, which is that it used traditional animation techniques (like stretch and squash, momentum, etc) to make the UI feel "alive". You can see a demo of the interface from Apple here, if you haven't seen it already. As part

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6879558.post-37030651668143687872007-01-28T13:16:00.000-07:002007-02-07T10:04:37.361-07:00

Ian McAnerinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06033492048277422132noreply@blogger.com0